Book: Handy Andy, Vol. 2

S >> Samuel Lover >> Handy Andy, Vol. 2




Such was the case with the old dowager, who, while Furlong was "doing
devotion" to Augusta, and appeared the pink of faithful swains, saw
very clearly that Furlong did not like it a bit, and would gladly
be off his bargain. Yea, while the people in their sober senses on
the same plane with the parties were taken in, the old lunatic, even
from the toppling height of her own mad chimney-pot, could look down
and see that Furlong would not marry Augusta if he could help it.

It _was_ even so. Furlong had acted under the influence of terror
when poor Augusta, shoved into his bedroom through the devilment of that
rascally imp, Ratty, and found there, through the evil destiny of Andy,
was flung into his arms by her enraged father, and accepted as his wife.
The immediate hurry of the election had delayed the marriage--the duel and
its consequences further interrupted "the happy event"--and O'Grady's
death caused a further postponement. It was delicately hinted to Furlong,
that when matters had gone so far as to the wedding-dresses being ready,
that the sooner the contracting parties under such circumstances were
married, the better. But Furlong, with that affectation of propriety which
belongs to his time-serving tribe, pleaded the "regard to appearances"--
"so soon after the ever-to-be-deplored event,"--and other such specious
excuses, which were but covers to his own rascality, and used but to
postpone the "wedding-day." The truth was, the moment Furlong had no
longer the terrors of O'Grady's pistol before his eyes, he had resolved
never to take so bad a match as that with Augusta appeared to be--indeed
was, as far as regarded money; though Furlong should only have been too
glad to be permitted to mix his plebeian blood with the daughter of a man
of high family, whose crippled circumstances and consequent truckling
conduct had reduced him to the wretched necessity of making _such a
cur_ as Furlong the inmate of his house. But so it was.

The family began at last to suspect the real state of the case, and
all were surprised except the old dowager; she had expected what
was coming, and had prepared herself for it. All her pistol practice
was with a view to call Furlong to the "last arbitrament" for this slight
to her house. Gusty was too young, she considered, for the duty; therefore
she, in her fantastic way of looking at the matter, looked upon
_herself_ as the head of the family, and, as such, determined to
resent the affront put upon it.

But of her real design the family at Neck-or-Nothing Hall had not the
remotest notion. Of course, an old lady going about with a pistol, powder-
flask, and bullets, and practising on the trunks of the trees in the park,
could not pass without observation, and surmises there were on the
subject; then her occasional exclamation of "Tremble, villain!" would
escape her; and sometimes in the family circle, after sitting for a while
in a state of abstraction, she would lift her attenuated hand armed with a
knitting-needle or a ball of worsted, and assuming the action of poising a
pistol, execute a smart _click_ with her tongue, and say, "I hit him
that time."

These exclamations, indicative of vengeance, were supposed at length by
the family to apply to Edward O'Connor, but excited pity rather than
alarm. When, however, one morning, the dowager was nowhere to be found,
and Ratty and the pistols had also disappeared, an inquiry was instituted
as to the old lady's whereabouts, and Mount Eskar was one of the first
places where she was sought, but without success; and all other inquiries
were equally unavailing.

The old lady had contrived, with that cunning peculiar to insane people,
to get away from the house at an early hour in the morning, unknown to all
except Ratty, to whom she confided her intention, and he managed to get
her out of the domain unobserved, and thence together they proceeded to
Dublin in a post-chaise. It was the day after this secret expedition was
undertaken that Mr. Furlong was sitting in his private apartment at the
Castle, doing "the state some service" by reading the morning papers,
which heavy official duty he relieved occasionally by turning to some
scented notes which lay near a morocco writing-case, whence they had been
drawn by the lisping dandy to flatter his vanity. He had been carrying on
a correspondence with an anonymous fair one, in whose heart, if her words
might be believed, Furlong had made desperate havoc.

It happened, however, that these notes were all fictitious, being the work
of Tom Loftus, who enjoyed playing on a puppy as much as playing on the
organ; and he had the satisfaction of seeing Furlong going through his
paces in certain squares he had appointed, wearing a flower of Tom's
choice and going through other antics which Tom had demanded under the
signature of "Phillis," written in a delicate hand on pink satin note-
paper with a lace border; one of the last notes suggested the possibility
of a visit from the lady, and, after assurances of "secrecy and honour"
had been returned by Furlong, he was anxiously expecting "what would
become of it;" and filled with pleasing reflections of what "a devil of a
fellow" he was among the ladies, he occasionally paced the room before a
handsome dressing-glass (with which his apartment was always furnished),
and ran his fingers through his curls with a complacent smile. While thus
occupied, and in such a frame of mind, the hall messenger entered the
apartment, and said a lady wished to see him.

"A lady!" exclaimed Furlong, in delighted surprise.

"She won't give her name, sir, but--"

"Show her up! show her up!" exclaimed the Lothario, eagerly.

All anxiety, he awaited the appearance of his donna; and quite a donna she
seemed, as a commanding figure, dressed in black, and enveloped in
a rich veil of the same, glided into the room.

"How vewy Spanish!" exclaimed Furlong, as he advanced to meet his
incognita, who, as soon as she entered, locked the door, and withdrew the
key.

"Quite pwactised in such secwet affairs," said Furlong slily. "Fai' lady,
allow me to touch you' fai' hand, and lead you to a seat."

The mysterious stranger made no answer; but lifting her long veil, turned
round on the lisping dandy, who staggered back, when the dowager O'Grady
appeared before him, drawn up to her full height, and anything but an
agreeable expression in her eye. She stalked up towards him, something in
the style of a spectre in a romance, which she was not very unlike; and as
she advanced, he retreated, until he got the table between him and this
most unwelcome apparition.

"I am come," said the dowager, with an ominous tone of voice.

"Vewy happy of the hono', I am sure, Mistwess O'Gwady," faltered Furlong.

"The avenger has come." Furlong opened his eyes. "I have come to wash the
stain!" said she, tapping her fingers in a theatrical manner on the table,
and, as it happened, she pointed to a large blotch of ink on the table-
cover. Furlong opened his eyes wider than ever, and thought this the
queerest bit of madness he ever heard of; however, thinking it best to
humour her, he answered, "Yes, it was a little awkwa'dness of mine--I
upset the inkstand the othe' day."

"Do you mock me, sir?" said she, with increasing bitterness.

"La, no! Mistwess O'Gwady."

"I have come, I say, to wash out in your blood the stain you have dared to
put on the name of O'Grady."

Furlong gasped with mingled amazement and fear.

"Tremble, villain!" she said; and she pointed toward him her long
attenuated finger with portentous solemnity.

[Illustration: The Challenge]

"I weally am quite at a loss, Mistwess O'Gwady, to compwehend--"

Before he could finish his sentence, the dowager had drawn from the depths
of her side-pockets a brace of pistols, and presenting them to Furlong,
said, "Be at a loss no longer, except the loss of life which may ensue:
take your choice of weapons, sir."

"Gwacious Heaven!" exclaimed Furlong, trembling from head to foot.

"You won't choose, then?" said the dowager. "Well, there's one for you;"
and she laid a pistol before him with as courteous a manner as if she were
making him a birthday present.

Furlong stared down upon it with a look of horror.

"Now we must toss for choice of ground," said the dowager. "I have no
money about me, for I paid my last half-crown to the post-boy, but this
will do as well for a toss as anything else;" and she laid her hands on
the dressing-glass as she spoke. "Now the call shall be 'safe,' or
'smash;' whoever calls 'safe,' if the glass comes down unbroken, has the
choice, and _vice versa_. I call first--'_Smash_,'" said the
dowager, as she flung up the dressing-glass, which fell in shivers on the
floor. "I have won," said she; "oblige me, sir, by standing in that far
corner. I have the light in my back--and you will have something else in
yours before long; take your ground, sir."

Furlong, finding himself thus cooped up with a mad woman, in an agony of
terror suddenly bethought himself of instances he had heard of escape,
under similar circumstances, by coinciding to a certain extent with the
views of the insane people, and suggested to the dowager that he hoped she
would not insist on a duel without their having a "friend" present.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the old lady: "I quite forgot that
form, in the excitement of the moment, though I have not overlooked the
necessity altogether, and have come provided with one."

"Allow me to wing for him," said Furlong, rushing to the bell.

"Stop!" exclaimed the dowager, levelling her pistol at the bell-pull;
"touch it, and you are a dead man!"

Furlong stood riveted to the spot where his rush had been arrested.

"No interruption, sir, till this little affair is settled. Here is my
friend," she added, putting her hand into her pocket and pulling out the
wooden cuckoo of her clock. "My little bird, sir, will see fair between
us;" and she perched the painted wooden thing, with a bit of feather
grotesquely sticking up out of its nether end, on the morocco letter-case.

"Oh, Lord!" said Furlong.

"He's a gentleman of the nicest honour, sir!" said the dowager, pacing
back to the window.

Furlong took advantage of the opportunity of her back being turned, and
rushed at the bell, which he pulled with great fury.

The dowager wheeled round with haste. "So you have rung," said she, "but
it shall not avail you--the door is locked; take your weapon, sir,--
quick!--what!--a coward!"

"Weally, Mistwess O'Gwady, I cannot think of deadly arbitrament with a
lady."

"Less would you like it with a man, _poltroon_!" said she, with an
exaggerated expression of contempt in her manner. "However," she added,
"if you _are_ a coward, you shall have a coward's punishment." She
went to a corner where stood a great variety of handsome canes, and laying
hold of one, began soundly to thrash Furlong, who feared to make any
resistance or attempt to disarm her of the cane, for the pistol was yet in
her other hand.

The bell was answered by the servant, who, on finding the door locked,
and hearing the row inside, began to knock and inquire loudly what
was the matter. The question was more loudly answered by Furlong,
who roared out, "Bweak the door! bweak the door!" interlarding his
directions with cries of "mu'der!"

The door at length was forced, Furlong rescued, and the old lady separated
from him. She became perfectly calm the moment other persons appeared, and
was replacing the pistols in her pocket, when Furlong requested the
"dweadful weapons" might be seized. The old lady gave up the pistols very
quietly, but laid hold of her bird and put it back into her pocket.

"This is a dweadful violation!" said Furlong, "and my life is not safe
unless she is bound ove' to keep the peace."

"Pooh! pooh!" said one of the gentlemen from the adjacent office, who came
to the scene on hearing the uproar, "binding over an old lady to keep the
peace--nonsense!"

"I insist upon it," said Furlong, with that stubbornness for which fools
are so remarkable.

"Oh--very well!" said the sensible gentleman, who left the room.

A party, pursuant to Furlong's determination, proceeded to the head
police-office close by the Castle, and a large mob gathered as they went
down Cork-hill and followed them to Exchange-court, where they crowded
before them in front of the office, so that it was with difficulty the
principals could make their way through the dense mass.

At length, however, they entered the office; and when Major Sir heard any
gentleman attached to the Government wanted his assistance, of course he
put any other case aside, and had the accuser and accused called up before
him.

Furlong made his charge of assault and battery, with intent to murder,
&c., &c. "Some mad old rebel, I suppose," said Major Sir. "Do you remember
'98, ma'am?" said the major.

"Indeed I do, sir--and I remember _you_ too: Major Sir I have the
honour to address, if I don't mistake."

"Yes, ma'am. What then?"

"I remember well in '98 when you were searching for rebels, you thought a
man was concealed in a dairy-yard in the neighbourhood of my mother's
house, major, in Stephen's Green; and you thought he was hid in a hay-
rick, and ordered your sergeant to ask for the loan of a spit from my
mother's kitchen to probe the haystack."

"Oh! then, madam, your mother was _loyal_, I suppose."

"Most loyal, sir."

"Give the lady a chair," said the major.

"Thank you, I don't want it--but, major, when you asked for the spit, my
mother thought you were going to practise one of your delightfully
ingenious bits of punishment, and asked the sergeant _who it was you
were going to roast_?"

The major grew livid on the bench where he sat, at this awkward
reminiscence of one of his friends, and a dead silence reigned through the
crowded office. He recovered himself, however, and addressed Mrs. O'Grady
in a mumbling manner, telling her she must give security to keep the
peace, herself--and find friends as sureties. On asking her had she any
friends to appear for her, she declared she had.

"A gentleman of the nicest honour, sir," said the dowager, pulling her
cuckoo from her pocket, and holding it up in view of the whole office.

A shout of laughter, of course, followed. The affair became at once
understood in its true light; a mad old lady--a paltry coward--&c., &c.
Those who know the excitability and fun of an Irish mob will not wonder
that, when the story got circulated from the office to the crowd without,
which it did with lightning rapidity, the old lady, on being placed
in a hackney-coach which was sent for, was hailed with a chorus of
"Cuckoo!" by the multitude, one half of which ran after the coach
as long as they could keep pace with it, shouting forth the spring-time
call, and the other half followed Furlong to the Castle, with hisses
and other more articulate demonstrations of their contempt.




CHAPTER XLV


The fat and fair Widow Flanagan had, at length, given up shilly-
shallying, and yielding to the fervent entreaties of Tom Durfy, had
consented to name the happy day. She _would_ have some little ways of
her own about it, however, and instead of being married in the country,
insisted on the nuptial knot being tied in Dublin. Thither the widow
repaired with her swain to complete the stipulated time of residence
within some metropolitan parish before the wedding could take place. In
the meanwhile they enjoyed all the gaiety the capital presented, the time
glided swiftly by, and Tom was within a day of being made a happy man,
when, as he was hastening to the lodgings of the fair widow, who was
waiting with her bonnet and shawl on to be escorted to the botanical
gardens at Glasnevin, he was accosted by an odd-looking person of somewhat
sinister aspect.

"I believe I have the honour of addressing Mister Durfy, sir?" Tom
answered in the affirmative. "_Thomas_ Durfy, Esquire, I think, sir?"

"Yes."

"This is for you, sir," he said, handing Tom a piece of dirty printed
paper, and at the same time laying his hand on Tom's shoulder and
executing a smirking sort of grin, which he meant to be the pattern of
politeness, added, "You'll excuse me, sir, but I arrest you under a
warrant from the High Sheriff of the city of Dublin; always sorry, sir,
for a gintleman in defficulties, but it's my duty."

"You're a bailiff, then?" said Tom.

"Sir," said the bum,

"'Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honour lies.'"

"I meant no offence," said Tom. "I only meant--"

"I understand, sir--I understand. These little defficulties startles
gintlemen at first--you've not been used to arrest, I see, sir?"

"Never in my life did such a thing happen before," said Tom. "I live
generally, thank God, where a bailiff daren't show his face."

"Ah, sir," said the bailiff with a grin, "them rustic habits betrays the
children o' nature often when they come to town; but we are _so
fisticated_ here in the metropolis, that we lay our hands on strangers
aisy. But you'd better not stand in the street, sir, or people will
understand it's an arrest, sir; and I suppose you wouldn't like the
exposure. I can simperise in a gintle-man's feelings, sir. If you walk
aisy on, sir, and don't attempt to escape or rescue, I'll keep a
gentlemanlike distance."

Tom walked on in great perplexity for a few steps, not knowing what to do.
The hour of his rendezvous had struck; he knew how impatient of neglect
the widow always was; he at one moment thought of asking the bailiff to
allow him to proceed to her lodgings at once, there boldly to avow what
had taken place and ask her to discharge the debt; but this his pride
would not allow him to do. As he came to the corner of a street, he got a
tap on the elbow from the bailiff, who, with a jerking motion of his thumb
and a wink, said in a confidential tone to Tom, "Down this street, sir--
that's the way to the _pres'n_ (prison)."

"Prison!" exclaimed Tom, halting involuntarily at the word.

"Shove on, sir--shove on!" hastily repeated the sheriff's officer,
urging his orders by a nudge or two on Tom's elbow.

"Don't shove me, sir!" said Tom, rather angrily, "or by G--"

"Aisy, sir--aisy!" said the bailiff; "though I feel for the defficulties
of a gintleman, the caption must be made, sir. If you don't like the
pris'n, I have a nice little room o' my own, sir, where you can wait, for
a small consideration, until you get bail."

"I'll go there, then," said Tom. "Go through as private streets as you
can."

"Give me half-a-guinea for my trouble, sir, and I'll ambulate you through
lanes every _fut_ o' the way."

"Very well," said Tom.

They now struck into a shabby street, and thence wended through stable
lanes, filthy alleys, up greasy broken steps, through one close, and down
steps in another--threaded dark passages whose debouchures were blocked up
with posts to prevent vehicular conveyance, the accumulated dirt of years
sensible to the tread from its lumpy unevenness, and the stagnant air rife
with pestilence. Tom felt increasing disgust at every step he proceeded,
but anything to him appeared better than being seen in the public streets
in such company; for, until they got into these labyrinths of nastiness,
Tom thought he saw in the looks of every passer-by, as plainly told as if
the words were spoken, "There goes a fellow under the care of the
bailiff." In these by-ways, he had not any objection to speak to his
companion, and for the first time asked him what he was arrested for.

"At the suit of Mr. M'Kail, sir."

"Oh! the tailor?" said Tom.

"Yes, sir," said the bailiff. "And if you would not consider it trifling
with the feelings of a gintleman in defficulties, I would make the playful
observation, sir, that it's quite in character to be arrested at the
_suit_ of a tailor. He! he! he!"

"You're a wag, I see," said Tom.

"Oh no, sir, only a poetic turn: a small affection I have certainly for
Judy Mot, but my rale passion is the muses. We are not far now, sir, from
my little bower of repose--which is the name I give my humble abode--
small, but snug, sir. You'll see another gintleman there, sir, before you.
He is waitin' for bail these three or four days, sir--can't pay as he
ought for the 'commodation, but he's a friend o' mine, I may almost say,
sir--a litherary gintleman--them litherary gintlemen is always in
defficulties mostly. I suppose you're a litherary gintleman, sir--though
you're rather ginteely dhressed for one?"

"No," said Tom, "I am not."

"I thought you wor, sir, by being acquainted with this other gintleman."

"An acquaintance of mine!" said Tom, with surprise.

"Yes, sir. In short it was through him I found out where you wor, sir. I
have had the wret agen you for some time, but couldn't make you off, till
my friend says I must carry a note from him to you."

"Where is the note?" inquired Tom.

"Not ready yet, sir. It's po'thry he's writin'--something 'pithy' he
said, and 'lame' too. I dunna how a thing could be pithy and lame
together, but them potes has hard words at command."

"Then you came away without the note?"

"Yis, sir. As soon as I found out where you wor stopping I ran off
directly on Mr. M'Kail's little business. You'll excuse the liberty, sir;
but we must all mind our professions; though, indeed, sir, if you b'lieve
me, I'd rather nab a rhyme than a gintleman any day; and if I could get on
the press I'd quit the shoulder-tapping profession."

Tom cast an eye of wonder on the bailiff, which the latter comprehended at
once; for with habitual nimbleness he could nab a man's thoughts as fast
as his person. "I know what you're thinkin', sir--could one of my
profession pursue the muses? Don't think, sir, I mane I could write the
'laders' or the pollitik'l articles, but the criminal cases, sir--the
robberies and offinces--with the watchhouse cases--together with a little
po'thry now and then. I think I could be useful, sir, and do better than
some of the chaps that pick up their ha'pence that way. But here's my
place, sir--my little bower of repose."

He knocked at the door of a small tumble-down house in a filthy lane, the
one window it presented in front being barred with iron. Some bolts were
drawn inside, and though the man who opened the door was forbidding in his
aspect, he did not refuse to let Tom in. The portal was hastily closed and
bolted after they had entered. The smell of the house was pestilential--
the entry dead dark.

"Give me your hand, sir," said the bailiff, leading Tom forward. They
ascended some creaking stairs, and the bailiff, fumbling for some time
with a key at a door, unlocked it and shoved it open, and then led in his
captive. Tom saw a shabby-genteel sort of person, whose back was towards
him, directing a letter.

"Ah, Goggins!" said the writer, "you're come back in the nick of time. I
have finished now, and you may take the letter to Mister Durfy."

"You may give it to him yourself, sir," replied Goggins, "for here he is."

"Indeed!" said the writer, turning round.

"What!" exclaimed Tom Durfy, in surprise; "James Reddy!"

"Even so," said James, with a sentimental air:

"'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'

Literature is a bad trade, my dear Tom!--'tis an ungrateful world--men of
the highest aspirations may lie in gaol for all the world cares; not that
you come within the pale of the worthless ones; this is good-natured of
you to come and see a friend in trouble. You deserve, my dear Tom, that
you should have been uppermost in my thoughts; for here is a note I have
just written to you, enclosing a copy of verses to you on your marriage
--in short, it is an epithalamium."

"That's what I told you, sir," said Goggins to Tom.

"May the divil burn you and your epithalamium!" said Tom Durfy, stamping
round the little room.

James Reddy stared in wonder, and Goggins roared, laughing.

"A pretty compliment you've paid me, Mister Reddy, this fine morning,"
said Tom; "you tell a bailiff where I live, that you may send your
infernal verses to me, and you get me arrested."

"Oh, murder!" exclaimed James. "I'm very sorry, my dear Tom; but, at the
same time, 't is a capital incident! How it would work up in a farce!"

"How funny it is!" said Tom in a rage, eyeing James as if he could have
eaten him. "Bad luck to all poetry and poetasters! By the 'tarnal war, I
wish every poet, from Homer down, was put into a mortar and pounded to
death!"

James poured forth expressions of sorrow for the mischance; and extremely
ludicrous it was to see one man making apologies for trying to pay his
friend a compliment; his friend swearing at him for his civility, and the
bailiff grinning at them both.

In this triangular dilemma we will leave them for the present.




CHAPTER XLVI


Edward O'Connor, on hearing from Gustavus of the old dowager's
disappearance from Neck-or-Nothing Hall, joined in the eager inquiries
which were made about her; and _his_ being directed with more method
and judgment than those of others, their result was more satisfactory. He
soon "took up the trail," to use an Indian phrase, and he and Gusty were
not many hours in posting after the old lady. They arrived in town early
in the morning, and lost no time in casting about for information.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.